> and yet none of them make money except search advertising.

I actually think lots of them make money -- over $5 billion in non-advertising revenue in 2013 [1]-- its just they are dwarfed by the scale of the revenue from search advertising ($50 billion in 2013.)

> they haven't successfully SOLD anything to date.

If they haven't sold anything but advertising, they must have just conjured that $5 billion in non-advertising revenue (and that total, and the proportion of non-advertising revenue to total revenue -- has been growing every year) in 2013 out of thin air. Which, you know, would be even more impressive than selling stuff.